“So?”
“I can’t explain that, sir… I have some theories, but—”
“What are those theories?”
“Well… it’s either that some blood splatter partially covered the suit rendering me visible or the Screamers have some sense or tech that we don’t know about, sir.”
The menace of parasite exposure returned to Rae at the thought of blood splatter.
Major Warwick looked at him, skeptically at first, but then nodded as though satisfied by his explanations. He eased up on the interrogation-style, his intensity waning. Rae ran him through the rest of the mission. He knew the whole conversation was being filmed and analysts would pore over it later.
“Well Captain, I’m pleased to say Tracking says that Darkstar’s re-entry went undetected, pick up by Pegasus was clean, and the rest we know,” concluded the major.
From the shuffle of feet and the familiar southern drawl, Rae could tell who it was nearing the closed briefing room door. He got to his feet. His stomach lurched. For reasons unknown, the man approaching filled him with dread. The door swung open and through strode the right-hand man of the president, General Gordon C. Hood, his uniformed female aide in tow. The rest of the entourage waited outside.
“General Hood!” announced the officious-looking, platinum-haired soldier-aide. Rae guessed she was thirtysomething but found it hard to tell on account of her flawless, synthetic perfection—commonplace in the American Union wherever there was money and influence. It disturbed Rae as he stole glances at her. Again, he was noticing new things.
Probably a conscripted Servile, he thought, wondering who she used to be before she’d been enslaved. But he knew no one should look that android-like. A superficially-attractive machine. A tool to be used. An object to be owned. He felt queasy again.
He clenched his abdominals, doing all he could to stay disciplined. Rae and the major snapped to attention, eyes on the diminutive general, his dark moustache and side-parted dark hair impeccably presented.
“Hail President White! Hail the Renaissance! Freedom Through Struggle!” they both recited.
Hood sized up the larger men one after the other saying nothing; his dark questioning eyes settled on Rae. Was it a show of dominance or admiration? He couldn’t tell.
“At ease, gentlemen,” said General Hood calmly, coming over and shaking Rae’s hand.
The cold, exposed metal of Hood’s robotic hand clenched firmly and precisely. No crushing, no limpness. Nothing but the best in prosthetics for the elite. It served as a momentary distraction from Rae’s demons.
“Excellent work, Captain. President White appreciates everything you’ve done for your country. We’ll see to it you’re rewarded appropriately. Take a seat, Captain.”
“Thank you, sir—it’s my honor.”
The general joined Major Warwick, leading beside him against the desk at the front. The female aide stood watchfully in the corner behind Rae. He had an idea what sort of reward would be on offer in addition to his usual mission bonuses. In the past, he’d turned them down and that was something he was glad of. The thought of prestige rewards like exclusive club memberships, material rewards like private transport drones never appealed much anyway. Another common reward was people. Serviles. Now, the thought of owned Serviles—whether for domestic work, as sporting partners or for sex—disgusted him. It was slavery and that ran against the grain in a way he hadn’t felt before blacking out on the Erasmus. Dr Muller’s red-light device seemed to have disrupted his neural implant and whatever nanites the Citizenship Pill had introduced years before that. He’d lived part of his life before the United States had become the American Union. Memories of life before he took, what he’d later find out was the Citizenship Pill, seemed clearer now. Like a fog had been lifted and he could see clearly the time sequence that had led to the taking of that innocuous little white capsule.
Southern Mexico, 2073. A land of warlords and scared, disheveled masses. Wolves and sheep. Hunters and hunted. Four years since the last pretense of government power had left the tropical state of Chiapas, bordering Guatemala. It would be the last full year of the United States. The Insurgency there was well underway. Emergency Laws had been enacted by the White-controlled legislature. Detention without trial, law enforcement and military immune to prosecution, trial of detainees by military tribunal. All explained, justified by a strictly-controlled media. Rae was busy busting his ass as a US Army Ranger, tours ever longer and more frequent, leave curtailed ever since his redeployment to Chiapas after fighting insurgents back home. During a lull in fighting, his squad had been summoned to the medical tent. They were told it was part of a new enhancement program. A nanite-based treatment to help improve cognitive function. Nameless at the time. A trial, they were told. They’d be first, the lucky the few, then the many, later to be rolled out to civilians. The Citizenship Pill. That was it, the origin, the dividing line between his old life and what had led to now. On the same tour, the powerful enemy mortar shell had knock over the vehicle Rae had been travelling in, along a jungle trail. He was out for hours and woke up in the field hospital before being medevacked to Chicago and Cora—his then-fiancée. By 2075, the Citizenship Pill had become mandatory for Citizens of the American Union. His neural implant had come the following year—part of the Biological Upgrade Program. Not compulsory, but without it, few Citizens could compete in their profession. Soldiering was what he did. He needed the mindchip.
Dr Muller’s intervention had messed with it, maybe depriving him of his career, his purpose. Yet it seemed to have reactivated a moral compass he’d kept locked in a dark, unfrequented corner of his mind. His sense of agency felt stronger too, like he was no longer being carried along in a torrent of unexplained impulses. A little voice in his head pined for the way he’d felt before Erasmus though. There was no getting away from it. Before he felt fine, now he felt like shit. No longer was he serenely calm, dispassionately logical in the face of the strife he’d inflicted. His head throbbed. He felt sick. Before Erasmus, any anxiety or shame or remorse was short-lived. Such thoughts could be corralled, controlled, put aside. Now those demons were eating him alive.
Ahh, please… just stop! Why won’t they go away?
Part of him worried that Warwick or the general or someone in Intel would know. But part of him didn’t care. Fixing his neural implant was the quickest way to make it stop. He craved it.
Like an addict getting his fix.
If they knew he was untethered from his mindchip, could they tell? He wanted to decide for himself—not have them do it for him.
“Are you ok, son?” said General Hood, concern thinly veiling suspicion.
Rae stood straight, cleared his throat.
“Sir, yessir!” he called, a little too loudly.
“Right… good. Now then, the ASTRA AI’s been offloaded,” said the general. “Initial analysis shows it’s in good shape.”
Rae nodded, forcing a smile.
General Hood continued, “I can’t share too much, but let’s just say ASTRA is of strategic importance, Captain.”
The general chuckled. Getting ASTRA had clearly pleased him.
“It’s really gonna turn the tide against the Screamers. Everything we’ve been doing—locking down the borders, walling off the internet, guarding against foreign propaganda, taking out Screamers and researching a cure for the alien parasite—all this ain’t just for us, Captain. No, we do it for our people, for our kids and… and this is our way: we do it for all humankind, even our enemies… the Alliance, the Russians, the damned Chinese.”
“Words we can all stand behind,” said Major Warwick sycophantically, looking at Rae to follow.
Ass-kissing bastard, thought Rae.
“Yessir, it’s an excellent win,” he said, obligingly.
“And tonight, President White will be addressing our great Union.”
Rae nodded, forcing himself to play along, ever the obedient soldier.
The general continued. “He will an
nounce that our researchers have developed a cure for the alien parasite. I’ve seen it with my own eyes—cures Screamers, reverting them back to human beings. A full recovery is the usual prognosis.”
“That is excellent news, sir,” said Warwick.
Rae wondered if he’d need the cure. There was a strong chance he’d been exposed to the alien parasite on the Erasmus.
He knew better than to ask details about the cure.
President White will likely spin a story about how he’ll bestow the cure as a generous humanitarian gesture, thought Rae.
Then he censured himself for the disloyal thoughts that had inexplicably formed.
Hail President White! he chanted in his mind.
“Permission to ask a question, sir,” said Rae.
“Go ahead,” said the general.
“Sir, may I ask why the ASTRA AI is strategically important?”
“You can ask Captain but I’m afraid it’s classified, so I can’t tell. All I can say is that it’s unmatched and extremely valuable to our cause. If it comes to it, ASTRA could win us the next war.”
“Sir, another query if you don’t mind…”
Major Warwick, exhaled, eyeing his superior apologetically. General Hood checked his watch, eyebrows raised.
Warwick said, “The general’s a busy man, Cap—”.
The diminutive general interrupted.
“It’s ok—I like our soldiers thinking. Go ahead, son.”
“Thank you, sir. The Alliance just lost their primary space asset—is there any sign of blowback?”
“Alliance thinks it’s an inside man—one of the crew on a murder-suicide rampage.”
General Hood got up from leaning on the desk, came over, and patted Rae on the shoulder.
“Don’t you worry about that. No evidence and completely deniable. You did a great job.”
The general turned to leave. “Thank you for your service, gentlemen.”
Rae and Major Warwick got to their feet, at attention. The android-like aide followed her master to the door. General Hood reached the door and suddenly about-turned, his face pensive.
“Oh, one other thing, Captain.”
“Sir?”
“Medical tells me you need to visit the hospital, get your mind enhancement fixed.”
Rae fought hard not to react. It was being taken out of his hands. He felt numb, out-of-body, Hood’s voice distant.
If the mindchip’s shaping reality, then I’ll become a puppet. But I want this pain to stop…
Rae said nothing.
“Captain… answer the general,” said Warwick impatiently.
“Yessir, I’ll attend the hospital, sir.”
“See to it you do, Captain. Freedom Through Struggle. That is all,” said General Hood, exiting the room with his Servile, who closed the door after them.
“Freedom Through Struggle!” bellowed Rae and Warwick in unison.
“You heard the general,” said Warwick. “Get yourself to the hospital as soon as you return to SC Chicago. Check your email. The appointment will be sent through. Go home and get some rest.”
Sanctuary City Chicago, to use its full title. His hometown. Wife, no kids—not yet, not until the Reproduction Agency allowed it. Central apartment. High-end, great location. The hospital was a short walk away. A place he needed to avoid until he could work out a plan. Again, he thought of Cora. What if they were both compromised? Could he free her too? Free to do what? Feel like shit? Lose the cognitive abilities the mindchip brought? The appointment to fix his neural implant would be mandatory. They’d come looking if he didn’t show. Then what? Escape to the Badlands and live like an Illegal? Destitute, hunted…
He needed time to think. But thinking was his whole problem.
“It’s surgery, sir. So… do you mind if I take a few days R&R first?”
If his CO said no, he’d need to accept it. And Rae had no doubt in his mind they’d monitor him and make sure he did go straight to hospital. Was the Sanctuary City a gilded cage, a cleverly woven illusion?
“Two days R&R granted,” Warwick said, flatly. “You look like you need it.”
Rae smiled.
“Thank you, sir.”
“Be sure to get some rest with that lovely wife of yours.”
He winked, licked his lips. Warwick’s salacious grin made him sick.
Misogynistic, disrespectful bastard.
He couldn’t recall being repelled by Warwick—or for that matter General Hood—before he’d left for space. It only came as further evidence how warped his mind was. He wondered about every other Citizen. Obviously Serviles were heavily controlled.
Might as well be androids, the way they’re treated, he thought, again surprising himself at his internal protest.
It explained the lack of AI androids in America as were common in other advanced countries. He’d seen them at work while undercover in Japan and Europe. Strangely, the question had never occurred to him before.
How high does it go? he wondered. Hood? The president himself? If that’s the case, who’s controlling him?
Too many questions, not enough time. He hoped it was all a bad dream, that he was still asleep on the Erasmus or that Dr Muller’s device had tricked his mind, turned him against the country he loved. The alternative was terrifying. Bleak. Totalitarian. Before it was just a word. Now it took on a horrifying new meaning.
7
Do not be misled by what you see around you or be influenced by what you see. You live in a world which is a playground of illusion, full of false paths, false values and false ideals. But you are not part of that world.
Sai Baba
H alfway through the 1,600 km, thirty-minute flight from Joint Base McKinnon to the Central Chicago air terminal, Rae peered down at the near total darkness below. Five years after the last Citizen resided in the Military Operations Zone, Mother Nature had gone some way to reclaiming it. Juvenile forests grew where once there had been farmland, weeds carpeted broken city streets, feral animals had multiplied. Millions of feral humans tried to survive. Buildings in thousands of abandoned towns and cities were decaying fast. Others had been bombed to smithereens by the military. Electricity was scarce. Lighting brought risks. As Rae knew well—unidentified lights, fire or smoke only attracted military strikes or bandit attacks. Since the Mexico Border Zone had been beefed up, the huge flood of humanity from the south had been stemmed. But that still left countless millions of people the government designated Illegals in AU territory. Hunting them was a huge military-industrial project.
A massacre under the guise of security, lamented Rae, once again surprising himself at his concern.
He looked around the darkened military charter cabin. Only four of the twenty-four seats held passengers—all of them uniformed men, all fast asleep. Given it was just after midnight, that didn’t surprise him. The large display window beside him curved with the fuselage of the plane. Most aircraft had no real windows any more—far cheaper and more reliable to use display surfaces instead. Outside on the horizon, in front of the stubby delta-wing, he could see the lights of Kansas City—the only Sanctuary City en route. The minutes passed, and the glowing dome of light from the distant city rapidly formed into shapes of skyscrapers and roads and sprawl, some kilometers to the east. He traced the expansive Sanctuary City territory, following the floodlit perimeter with its fences, trenches, twelve-meter-high wall, and sensors. He spotted the faint lights of Army patrol drones on both land and in the air, hovering outside the perimeter.
Rae knew the Defense-in-Depth strategy well having spent six months as a grunt in the early stages of Chicago’s perimeter build. The strict shoot-to-kill order had been in force since 2077 when the human rights of Illegals had been rescinded. He pursed his lips, head shaking, feeling the injustice of it. Before the Erasmus, he knew he would’ve been devoid of such thoughts. It wasn’t like the old days, when it was still the US Army. After all, that was the organization he’d joined while still at college. In t
hose days, rules of engagement were nothing like now. Shooting unarmed civilians because they were in the wrong place was something neither he nor his fellow soldiers would have accepted. Now it was routine.
A nagging doubt still clung on despite his rationalizing. Surely, part of him would have resisted if the mindchip was a technological master taking its orders from some command hierarchy. Was he a threat to state security, compromised by the enemy’s devious manipulation? Perhaps Dr Muller’s red-light device uploaded some instructions to work on their behalf? His head felt dizzy trying to process the evidence, the possibilities. He yawned and rubbed his eyes, aware that tiredness only worsened paranoia. His instinct told him Dr Muller had freed him from an insidious Trojan Horse—the mindchip. Knowing how the mind worked, it could’ve planted thoughts in his subconscious only to surface in his conscious mind as though he’d formed them himself. If that was true, then he would’ve had no idea they weren’t his own thoughts.
The illusion of free will. Insidious, effective.
Five minutes passed. The jet had gone subsonic, dropping altitude as Chicago’s own perimeter came into view up ahead. The competent, congenial male voice of the flight computer spoke over the engine hum.
“Gentlemen, this is your pilot speaking. We are now making our descent into Sanctuary City Chicago’s Central Air Terminal. Please ensure your seatbelt is fastened and any loose objects are stowed. The estimated time of landing is 0035 hours. The weather in Chicago is clear with a temperature of five degrees Celsius. Thank you for flying with Advanced Air Charters.”
That the computer knew all the passengers on board were male wasn’t lost on him. Neither was the fact that it referred to itself as the pilot. There hadn’t been pilots on commercial flights for decades, but the thought still made passengers feel better.
Minutes later, the jet’s twin engines swiveled progressively until they’d slowed it to a gentle forward hover, descending the remaining few hundred meters towards the expansive concrete pad. The platform of reinforced foam-concrete sat suspended quarter of a kilometer high atop four identical tower blocks. The Chicago Central Air Terminal: all the speed of supersonic air travel with a convenient downtown location. Dozens of vertical take-off and landing planes sat below. Diagonal skyways connected them to the tarmac, disappearing below into the terminal building. Another tube joined the belly of the fuselage, this one for baggage transfer. Rae watched the departure zone: a mid-size passenger jet with its wing and tail lights flashing, engines pointed in the downwards take-off position. The skyway tube retracted into the tarmac, leaving the jet to levitate, then slip forwards and upwards, gathering speed as it departed. Rae’s plane landed gently, the fake pilot saying his farewells as Rae took the escalator down the skyway into the cavernous, bright-white terminal hall. Even at this time of night, the place was alive with passengers. The Arrivals board read New York JFK, Washington DC, Houston, Seattle, San Francisco, Atlanta, and Boston. Each of them one of the dozen Sanctuary Cities. No international flights here—they only went through Seattle and New York via heavily secured areas. As well as hard-to-get visas, all foreign passengers were fitted with ankle bracelets. Or Security Tags as the government called them.
The Free Citizen Page 6